Saved by the Great White Hope
is the first episode of season one of Off the Map. Short Summary Idealistic young Dr. Lily Brenner, along with fellow doctors Mina Minard and Tommy Fuller, arrive in "la ciudad de las estrellas" (the city of stars), a tiny town in the South American jungle which has one understaffed, under-stocked medical clinic. All of these young doctors are running away from personal demons, but they aren't the only ones with emotional baggage. They're introduced to the legendary and enigmatic Ben Keeton, who was the youngest Chief of Surgery at UCLA but who walked away from it all to found the clinic. Together with his right-hand doctor, Otis Cole, the mysterious Dr. Ryan Clark and local doctor Zita Alvarez, he'll teach the newcomers how to save lives in the most challenging environment they've ever worked in while taking them on adventures of a lifetime. Full Summary Ben Keeton, Zee Alvarez, and Otis Cole watch from a cliff while two rescuers try to save a surfer who has been injured. They debate going down to help. They also discuss the new doctors arriving that day, which Zee calls cocky, imperialist doctors. Otis is also not a fan, though Ben's eager for them. The rescuers failed again, so Ben hands Zee his stethoscope and jumps in. Otis flirts with Zee for a moment before handing her his as well and jumping in. Lily Brenner is excited to arrive at the clinic. The taxi driver tells her to call him when she's ready to go back to the airport. She says it's a one-way trip, but he gives her his card anyway. As they talk, Ryan Clark angrily packs her stuff into the cab and tells Lily to take the card. Lily finds Zee and bungles her name introducing herself. Zee corrects her and then says to drop her bags and see if she can help. Lily sees Ben and Cole working on the surfer, who has been impaled by a stingray. Mina Minard and Tommy Fuller, the other new doctors, are also watching in awe. The new doctors introduce themselves to each other. Then Lily steps forward to help with the surfer. With their help, Ben is able to pull the stingray out. Ben shows the new doctors around and he explains how medicine is different at the clinic. Cole comes by and Ben introduces him as well. Tommy asks Cole if they can hit the beach before they start working. Tommy tells Mina and Lily that Cole asked him to go look after one of his patients, but they're busy watching Ben change his shirt. Tommy's excited about surfing and the sun. He gives the women sunscreen samples and then leaves. Mina then notices that Lily brought her own trauma kit. Mina calls her a girl scout, which she agrees is true. Tommy wanders around, trying to read the map. Charlie offers his help and knows Tommy did something wrong to be stuck in a house call on his first day. Charlie's the translator for the clinic and says Tommy might need his help. Tommy doesn't want to take him, because the patient has TB and he doesn't want to expose a child, but quickly realizes he won't make it there without Charlie. Zee tells Mina and Lily that she has 40 patients waiting to be seen and she's down a doctor. Ben comes by saying there's an injury out in the jungle and he could use another hand. He ends up taking Lily and Zee gives Mina the file of a patient she needs to see. Ben takes Lily out to a motorcycle and they climb on and head out. Cole finds Mina doing a rectal exam. She suspects hemorrhagic fever. Cole says something to the patient in Spanish, hands him a pill bottle, and the patient rushes out carrying his clothes. Cole says sometimes it's just tennis elbow. Tommy is starting to get tired. He thinks he's being punished. Charlie tells him Americans are fat and lazy because they just drive everywhere. They finally arrive at the home of Cole's patient. All the children are sick, but Cole was treating the wife, whom Tommy finds is dead. Ben and Lily arrive to find that the patient slammed into a tree and was bleeding profusely. He's up on a zip line, trapped. Charlie translates while Tommy tries to explain to the father that his children need treatment. He doesn't want them to take the medicine because be believes it made his wife die. He made her stop taking the medicine because he thought it was making her worse. That's what he believes, so Tommy says he's done everything he can do there. Ben gets Lily geared up. He wants them to go out together so they can both reach him, but the guide says the line won't hold three people and might not even hold two. Ben says Lily will have to go alone because she's lighter and tapes the supplies to her. He'll go next to her and get as close as he can to talk her through it. She goes out, but can't break, so she slams into the patient. She evaluates him. His arm is caught in the roller and he's in shock, so he's not responding to her. Ben says she'll have to tourniquet his arm and cut the flesh free so they can get him down. Just then, the patient come out of shock and starts flailing. Mina tells her patient, an older woman, and says she has a cold. She uses broken Spanish to tell her to come back if she develops a fever. The patient is still panicking, so Lily yells at him to snap him out of it. He says he's Ed Greenman. She tells him he's not going to die. She explains what she's going to do. Ben coaches her as she starts cutting his arm free. Lily distracts him by asking him why he's there. He went there on his honeymoon when he was 25. They have Ed on a gurney and they're taking him back to the clinic. Ben tells Lily she didn't do badly for her first day back. He knows she took some time off. She says she lost somebody, so she took some time, but she's okay now. Zee is exasperated. Cole asks her what wrong and she says she's slammed and hasn't figured out how to clone herself. And she's upset that Ryan left. Again. They all leave, so she's not sure why she wastes her time training useless Americans who don't even bother to learn Spanish. He says she's a great teacher, but she's certain all the new doctors will be gone by the end of the week. Lily does an ultrasound on Ed. His arm is fine, but he's starting to bleed internally. Ben says it may heal itself, but if it doesn't, they'll have to operate. Lily asks if he has any family they should contact, like his wife. He says his wife passed away a few months ago. He'd spent thirty years promising her they'd come back to the jungle, but they were busy. He finally retired and booked the trip, but he waited too long. Lily wonders if they can't get Ed to a hospital where they have a CT, but Ben says the airlift can't land until tomorrow. He tells her to get him on packed cells. Mina goes to leave and sees the older woman still at the clinic. She tries to explain to her again that she can go home now. Tommy tells Cole that his patient is dead and explains what happened. He had the guy sign a paper saying he was refusing treatment. Cole did his homework on Tommy. He knows he's not stupid, just lazy. Cole says he has to haul his ass back there in the morning and treat those patients or don't bother coming back. At a party, Tommy wonders how it can be so hot at 3 AM. He joins Lily standing in front of a fan. Mina joins them as well. They talk about their days and their experience being in the jungle so far. It's not what they expected. Mina learns from the other two that the clinic doctors know everything about them. Lily checks on Ed. He's sure she thinks he's a nut job for losing someone and then hopping on a plane to the jungle. She says she doesn't at all. He says he brought his wife's ashes with him. He wanted to take her to the place she loved most, the "firefly lake." At night, the algae lights up and it looks like fireflies. It's beautiful and that's where he was going to say goodbye. Life has a way of changing your planes though. Lily is sleeping by Ed's bed. He starts coding, which wakes her. The bleeding has gotten worse. Charlie leads Tommy back to the house and says he's planning to turn on the charm to get the father to agree to treatment. Ben, Zee, and Cole are operating on Ed. It's not just his spleen. They don't have enough blood to transfuse. Ben has an idea and tells Lily to come with him. Mina sees the old woman still there. She's struggling to breathe and collapses. Lily and Ben are looking for coconuts to use to replace his blood, something they did in World War II when they ran out of fluids. He's done it once before. Ben climbs up the tree and tells her to catch the coconuts. She's surprised when she's able to catch the first one. Mina does CPR on the older woman. A nurse brings her a shot and she gives it to the woman, who gasps and wakes up. Ben brings the coconuts into the OR and hooks it up to Ed's IV. The family with TB is getting worse. The father still objects to treatment. Tommy gives an impassioned speech about being a proud man and not wanting someone to tell him what to do. He hasn't spoken to his family in a year because they told him to grow up and he wouldn't. He begs the man to let him help. The man finally relents and shakes Tommy's hand. Tommy starts treating the children. Ben removes Ed's spleen. He asks Lily to step in, telling her she's a surgeon there. She's anything they might need. Ed's finally improving. Lily brags to Mina about what they just did. Mina's upset because they don't have any steroids. She accidentally knocks over a bottle that breaks. She's upset because she was looking for rare, tropical disease and almost lost a woman to asthma. Mina explains that when she was a resident, she had to fight to get on cases and it made it hard to learn, so she started moonlighting at another hospital. One day, after 72 hours with no sleep, a kid came into the ER with a fever. She thought it was a flu, so she sent him home and he died three hours later. She got kicked out of her residency. It was bacterial meningitis. It would had just taken a spinal tap, but she was too exhausted to do one. So sometimes it is zebras. Mina explains to the woman that she has asthma as she searches the contents of her bag for something. She finds her inhaler and gives it to the woman. She only has a few because she brought them from home. She shows her how to use it and the woman is grateful. Ben explains Ed's condition as they prepared to take him to the city hospital. He's upset because of the fireflies. Lily begs them to wait and let him go to the lake to say goodbye to his wife before he goes to the hospital. Tommy tries to find a situation under which Mina would agree to have sex with him. She won't, even to save the human race. Mina sees the older woman and a younger woman with her. She asks if Mina's the one who treated her grandmother. Mina says she was. The granddaughter explains that her grandmother is 80 and took her first real breath today, thanks to Mina. Then she gives Mina a chicken. Mina tries to turn it down, but eventually takes it. They arrive at the lake. Lily thinks it's just a ton, but then Ben skips a stone across it and the lake lights up from the algae. She tells Ed they're there and gives him his wife's ashes. He dumps the ashes and tells his wife they made it. She's with the fireflies now. Then he thanks Lily. The helicopter leaves with Ed. Lily tells Ben she lost her fiancé. That's why she left residency. Ben asks if she's ever seen the southern cross. He points it out to her in the sky. It gave Magellan the strength to keep going. Ben tells Lily to keep going. Zee sees the young doctors walking out toward the water and asks what they're doing. Cole and Ben make a bet on how they end up. Ben goes inside and sees Ryan there. She spent two days at the hospital, eating bad airport food and praying. God says Ben's an ass. Ben says God never liked him that much. Ben's glad Ryan's back. She says he needs her that and she's not going to throw away all the good she can do at that place because of him. She asks if he's coming to bed and he says no. Ryan knows he misses her, but she's gone and she's not coming back. She leaves and says she won't wait up. Tommy, Mina, and Lily look over the water. It's beautiful. Lily says if there were ever a place to start over, it's there. She jumps off the cliff into the water. After a moment, Mina joins her. Tommy says they're both crazy, but then jumps himself a moment later. The three of them frolic together in the water. Cast Main Cast *Jonathan Castellanos as Charlie *Valerie Cruz as Dr. Zee Alvarez *Caroline Dhavernas as Dr. Lily Brenner *Jason George as Dr. Otis Cole *Zach Gilford as Dr. Tommy Fuller *Mamie Gummer as Dr. Mina Minard *Martin Henderson as Dr. Ben Keeton *Rachelle Lefevre as Dr. Ryan Clark Guest Stars *Michael McKean as Ed Greenman Co-Starring *Thomas Blake, Jr. as Surfer *Julio Ramos as Father *Paul Mitri as Tour Guide #1 *Antonio Anagaran as Tour Guide #2 *Anthony J. Silva, Jr. as Taxi Driver *Hunter Schmidt as Tourist Kid Medical Notes Tourist Kid *'Diagnosis:' **Army injury *'Doctors:' **Zee Alvarez *'Treatment:' The kid had injured his arm. Zee adjusted his arm and gave him a sling. Surfer *'Diagnosis:' **Stingray *'Doctors:' **Ben Keeton **Otis Cole *'Treatment:' A super had been stung by a stingray. After he was rescued, they brought him to the clinic. Ben was able to extract the stingray from his foot and treat his wound. Mina's Patient *'Diagnosis:' **Tennis elbow *'Doctors:' **Mina Minard **Otis Cole *'Treatment:' **Pain relief Mina did a rectal exam on a patient. Cole came in and quickly put a stop to it. She believed it was hemorrhagic fever, but he said it was just tennis elbow, gave the man some pills, then sent him on his way. Cole's Patient and Family *'Diagnosis:' **Tuberculosis *'Doctors:' **Tommy Fuller *'Treatment:' **Antibiotics Cole sent Tommy to check on his patient, whom he was treating for tuberculosis. He found that the original patient had died, but her husband and children all had tuberculosis. The father initially refused treatment, but later agreed and Tommy started antibiotics. Ed Greenman *'Diagnosis:' **Lacerations **Splenic laceration *'Doctors:' **Lily Brenner **Ben Keeton **Zee Alvarez **Otis Cole *'Treatment:' **Bandaging **Surgery **Splenectomy Ed became trapped when his arm got caught in the roller while zip lining. Lily went out on a line with him and cut his arm free. Then they took him back to the clinic. An ultrasound showed that while his arm was fine and would heal, he was bleeding internally. They decided to wait and see if it resolved itself. Overnight, the bleeding got worse and he coded. They took him into surgery to repair the bleeding, but found it was worse than they previously believed. He had serious blood loss and they didn't have sufficient supply of blood, so Ben and Lily retrieved some coconuts. They transfused that fluid and he stabilized. They removed his spleen and then sent him to the hospital in the city by helicopter. Older Woman *'Diagnosis:' **Asthma *'Doctors:' **Mina Minard *'Treatment:' **Epinephrine **Inhaled steroids Mina treated a woman, 80, in the clinic. She told the woman she had a cold and told her to come back if she developed a fever. However, that night, the woman was still there. Mina tried again to tell her to go home. The next morning, the woman collapsed at the clinic and Mina did CPR then gave her epinephrine, which woke her up. She then gave the woman her own inhaler and showed her how to use it. Music Notes and Trivia *This episode scored 7.57 million viewers, the series high. *'Title Drop:' Zee says it to Lily just after Lily arrives at the clinic. Gallery Episode Stills 1x01-1.jpg 1x01-2.jpg 1x01-3.jpg 1x01-4.jpg 1x01-5.jpg 1x01-6.jpg 1x01-7.jpg 1x01-8.jpg 1x01-9.jpg 1x01-10.jpg 1x01-11.jpg 1x01-12.jpg Quotes See Also Category:Episodes